‘This is the business. From the start, you realise that you are in the presence of a sharp, subversive and observant intelligence, a writer with an ear for a story and the easy narrative manner of someone who – it comes as an instant relief to notice this – isn’t going to bore you once.’

– Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

‘The effect of Boyle’s poetry is exhilarating. He is happy to join literary tradition, to be guided by the penetrating curiosity of Stendhal and then leap off on his own thought tangent.’

‘Deceptively simple-looking poems, almost throwaway at times, but full of wit and insight into the way we live now, our tribal customs and evasions.’

– William Scammell, Independent on Sunday

‘Howlingly funny … Boyle is a fine poet of the city – the solitary, broken-biscuit aspect of it – and of its rituals.’

– Sean O’Brien, Sunday Times

‘Boyle’s details resonate with historical and social awareness: his elegant, atmospheric concision achieves the effect of a radically compressed short story.’

– Simon Carnell, Times Literary Supplement

‘Brilliant … Boyle’s disaffection – middle-class, middle-aged, in a listless millennial culture – is rendered in a perversely attentive and humorous fashion, which itself almost compensates for the anomie and despair.’